It is true I am on the point of coming to Leipzig and of seeing and talking to you, yet to-day I know no other way of combating the remorseless pressure of sorrow and anxiety. I must write to you at once. The tears stream from my eyes, just as they used to do in my boyhood when I had offended someone I loved and had to ask forgiveness. Theodore, what has become of that free, glorious vitality which we used mutually to kindle in each other? Where is the future we strove for with such a proud assurance of victory?
I have been to Teplitz again and kept a sorrowful anniversary there. I have also been in Prague again, and there I spoke with the mistresses of Count Baar and Baron Bethman, whom we used to know as Jenny and Auguste Raymann. I have been in Karlsbad too, and in Wurzburg. My girl Friederike Galvani had in the meantime been confined; a country bumpkin had been my fortunate rival. Theodore, how my luck has left me since you left me! Poetry flees from me and a desert of worthless truth stretches endlessly before me.
Yes, yes, I have sinned and yet I have not. Does one sin when one is mad? I have fallen out with my family and must believe our relationship dissolved; Leipzig is behind me now, and all that I have left me is a mother who loves me dearly. Theodore, have I still a friend? Have I still your love and your trust? To lose so noble a spirit means much to me. If you too were to misjudge me, farewell, fair world. I have wept my eyes out and am calmer now.
Up to now I have badly mismanaged my life. I was not wicked, I was mad; that is the only way I can express my conduct. It was a madness about the conventions. I now see that money is no chimera, and that I had no secure support. I exceeded my means in every direction, and the result has been a maelstrom of perplexity and misery. I have learned at last that I must depend on myself and my own strength, and that your heart and your love must be my sole refuge.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 22